Free Republic

School officials at the University of Minnesota are working with black student and facility organizations after they wrote a letter to the school’s president about the racial descriptions given in crime alerts. The letter, sent on Dec. 6, 2013, was issued by members of the African American and African Studies, Black Faculty and Staff Association, Black Graduate and Professional Student Association, Black Men’s Forum, Black Student Union and Huntley House for African American Males. It was directed to University President Eric Kaler and Pamela Wheelock, the vice president of University Services.

As attorney general, Eric Holder has approved pursuing the death penalty in at least 34 criminal cases, upholding a long-ago pledge to Congress that he would vigorously enforce federal law even though he's not a proponent of capital punishment. With a court-ordered deadline of Friday, Holder will make the most high-profile death penalty decision of his career in law enforcement: whether to seek capital punishment in the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the defendant in the Boston Marathon bombings last April that killed three people and injured 260.

A sophomore wrestler from Albert Lea intentionally lost his match in order to make his opponent's day. "I found out he had down syndrome, and then once I was told that, I knew that I was going to give him the match because I was told he hasn't won a match or anything yet," Ryleigh Bure said. He had his mother Danielle Bure film the match against Kyle, who was down syndrome. Ryleigh said he didn't tell anyone his plan. "Everyone deserves to win. I know what it feels like and he hasn't had a win yet, so I thought...

Larry Lujack, the legendary Chicago radio personality known as "Superjock" and "Uncle Lar," died Wednesday in New Mexico, his wife said. He was 73. Judith "Jude" Lujack told the Tribune her husband had been in hospice care for three days and died of esophageal cancer.

A northeast Minneapolis man said he interrupted an armed and bloody robbery at a corner market in his neighborhood, sending the two suspects fleeing when he drew his handgun from his holster and had it “at the ready.” The confrontation occurred shortly after 9:30 p.m. Tuesday outside the University Market in the 300 block of 37th Avenue, according to police and the man who stepped in and halted the crime. Store owner Mohamed S. Ahmed, 41, had the “back of his skull split open pretty good” from being pistol-whipped by one of the suspects, said Matt Dosser, the armed citizen...

The GOP’s 2008 nominee for vice president will be at the Mall of America on Friday signing copies of her new book, “Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of America.”

Thirteen people were ejected from a van that crashed near Worthington, Minn., early Thursday morning, the Minnesota State Patrol said. The accident reportedly happened on westbound Interstate 90 after icy roads caused the vehicle to crash and roll, according to the Minnesota State Patrol. The driver was identified as 29-year-old Altayeb Arbab-Azzein of Sioux Falls

A Minnesota legislator wants a provision stripped from the Vikings new stadium lease that would prevent the building from being used by businesses that sell guns and other weapons. Republican Rep. Pat Garofalo of Farmington said in a letter Thursday that the restriction could discourage hunting and outdoors groups from holding offseason events at the planned $975 million stadium, which is being built with a partial public subsidy. The Associated Press reported on the clause this week that is contained in a 30-year stadium lease.

NBC has scrapped its controversial Hillary Clinton miniseries project. “After reviewing and prioritizing our slate of movie/miniseries development, we’ve decided that we will no longer continue developing the Hillary Clinton miniseries,” the network said in a statement Monday.

Big time. Totally. Game over. Look no further than the reaction on Wall Street this week to the latest gun rampage, at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. Once upon a time, news of a killing spree would have sent the stocks of major gun manufacturers into a tailspin, as investors fretted that an outraged public would at last demand new gun-control laws. As recently as last December, in the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Connecticut, shares in gun makers Sturm, Ruger & Co. and Smith & Wesson Holding Co. both crashed. But this week?...

Police are investigating after two men, who serve in the military, were hit by a vehicle in Roseville Tuesday afternoon. According to Roseville Police, a driver hit the men at Snelling Avenue and County Road B2. One of the men flew over the top of the vehicle, while the other was stuck under the vehicle. Police say the driver kept going and dragged the man for about 3/4 of a mile. At one point the driver stopped to try to kick the man out from underneath the vehicle, but the man was stuck. The driver got back in his car...

The announcement comes Monday in response to requests from three pairs of men in treatment at the state facility in Moose Lake who are seeking marriage licenses following the change in state law Aug. 1 that allows same sex couples to marry. “We don’t intend to interfere with their right to marry one another,” said Deputy Commissioner Anne Barry, whose duties include overseeing the sex offender program. The law change that has allowed same sex marriages in Minnesota has forced DHS to review its policies surrounding the sex offender program, which houses more than 600 offenders considered too risky and...

A 23-year-old woman admitted Thursday that she lied to a grand jury investigating the long-running case of young men who left Minnesota to join a terrorist group in Somalia. Saynab Hussein pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Minnesota to one count of perjury. She admitted that in June 2009 she lied when she told a grand jury she did not know anyone who raised money for the travelers, when she actually helped raise money herself.

I went to my local Gander to get my duck stamps and a deer license today and noticed that they were flush with handgun and AR ammo for the first time in a long time (.22 LR too!) Got to the counter to check out and observed (heard) the gal behind the counter ask the gentleman ahead of me who had his limit of 10 boxes of .22 LR (50 per box) his DOB and if he was going to be using a long gun or a handgun. His DOB was something in 1929 and he was going to be...

The U.S. military has reversed a string of decisions that would have restricted access for severely wounded troops to a popular dining hall at Walter Reed hospital, after Fox News began reporting on complaints from veterans and their families. The military earlier this month decided to invalidate meal tickets and reduce hours for the Warrior Cafe, the sole dining facility in building 62 -- home to all multiple amputees and long-term, recovering patients at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. The wife of one of the veterans affected by the decision told Fox News on Thursday that...

Gov. Mark Dayton on Tuesday was steadfast in his insistence that he did the right thing by keeping the target of his economic development trip last week a mystery. "I went because I am trying to get jobs for Minnesota and part of that is meeting with businesses who don’t share my willingness to be put in the public limelight," he told reporters on Tuesday, the first day he met with the media since his mystery mission. "If I am going to have to disclose where I went in that kind of situation, it is going to cost me the...

A woman was arrested Monday after green paint was found splattered inside two chapels at the Washington National Cathedral, and police were investigating her in connection with two similar incidents on the National Mall, authorities said. The woman was arrested in the area of the cathedral shortly after the paint was found, Assistant D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said. Investigators were hoping to question her about the vandalism on the Mall, including at the Lincoln Memorial, but a language barrier delayed the interrogation, Newsham said.

Businesses in the heavily Asian city of Monterey Park, Calif., now must post their signs in English as well as in Chinese. The requirement will help promote economic development and increase public safety, the City Council said in passing the change unanimously. Businesses now must install at least one sign that uses the "modern Latin alphabet," KNBC-TV reports.

Two Inver Grove Heights men are facing felony drug charges after authorities busted them with almost six pounds of cocaine — far more than was seized in the county in all of 2012 — and two pounds of meth with a combined value of about $150,000, the Dakota County attorney’s office said. Mike Sanchez, 27, and Josue I. Ledezma-Lopez, 22, were each charged Thursday with two counts of first-degree controlled substance crimes. They are being held in the county jail on $500,000 bail. The criminal complaint said the Dakota County Drug Task Force learned that Sanchez was trafficking in large...